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| Union fleet passing Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip below New Orleans. |
The Civil War marked the first time military leaders used
electrical communication to fight a war.
Military officials in both the North
and the South also realized that the news reports coming over the telegraph
could give the enemy valuable information about the disposition of troops.
As might have been expected, military officials began trying
to control telegraph transmissions.
The Mobile Advertiser
and Register had trouble getting the news out to the rest of the South when
a federal naval squadron under Capt. David G. Farragut battled its way up the
Mississippi River past forts Jackson and St. Philip on the night of the April
24, 1862.
Telegraph operators in New Orleans quickly flashed the news
to Mobile where the Register reported
that the South’s largest city lay open to the federal fleet. Military censor at
Mobile, over the Register’s protest,
attempted to block transmission of the news elsewhere. Every report had to be
shown to the general in command in Mobile before it was put into type. Such
censorship remained a problem throughout the war.
